Why Until Freedom found its way to Louisville and is staying to help Breonna Taylor

When Until Freedom first came to Louisville — and kept coming back — it wasn't because group leaders thought they were the only ones who could fight for justice for Breonna Taylor.

And when its members protest during the Kentucky Derby Saturday, the group sees its role as standing in solidarity with local activists, not drowning out their voices. 

Until Freedom, a year-old social justice organization based in New York, has made Taylor and Louisville its focus at a time when mass protests against systemic racism and police brutality are happening around the country.

The group came to Louisville to lend its influence and connections to bring national attention with them.

"Most of the time, when there's an issue, there's somebody doing that work and they just need the resources," said Mysonne Linen, one of the group's four co-founders. "… And when we realized that we had that power and we had those resources, we wanted to make sure that we utilize those properly."

Live updates:Follow along as Taylor protesters demonstrate ahead of Derby

In an interview with The Courier Journal, Linen and Angelo Pinto, two of the four co-founders, talked about Until Freedom's origins, its mission, the way it seeks to work with local activists and why the Taylor case is now its primary focus. 

The four co-founders got to know one another through The Gathering for Justice, another social justice organization. 

"I think we all wanted to see ourselves in an organization in this movement," Linen said. "… We just all wanted to form … this gumbo of an organization that showed there's a place for everyone."

Pinto is an attorney who's been involved in public policy.

Linen is an independent hip-hop artist whose activism has focused on the criminal justice system.

Tamika Mallory helped organize the Women’s March on Washington and specializes in gun violence prevention and grassroots organizing. 

Linda Sarsour is a Palestinian Muslim American born who also helped organize the Women's March and co-founded MPower Change, a Muslim online organizing platform.

"We started Until Freedom with the idea that we wanted to build an organization that didn't exist," Pinto said. "… And we also want to bring different people into the work, folks who were celebrities and influencers, attorneys and activists.

"We wanted to bring them all together because we knew together, we'd be more impactful."

100 days:Looking back at moments that have shaped the Taylor movement

The group's funding comes from a variety of sources.

Two tech CEOs — Stewart Butterfield of Slack and Jen Rubio of Away — pledged to make a $700,000 donation, plus match $300,000 in donations to 10 anti-racism organizations, including Until Freedom.

And last month, several original cast members of the hit Broadway musical "Hamilton" organized three virtual fundraisers under the name Ham4Change. They raised more than $300,000 for several groups, they said, including about $70,000 during the second week that was split between Until Freedom and two other groups.

Linen said he prefers the term "investments in freedom" rather than donations. In addition to small donations, he said the group has received money from athletes and artists, including the rapper Snoop Dogg. 

"We're not bound to any entity for anything,” Linen said. “We don't take corporation money because we want our voices to stay free. We want our voices to stay authentic. So, there's not just one organization or person or anything that just funds Until Freedom.”

Finding their way to Louisville and Breonna Taylor

Ben Crump, a prominent national civil rights lawyer and one of the attorneys representing’s Taylor’s family, first put the case on the group’s radar.

"When we hear about Black women being murdered by police, it usually sets off an alarm for us to say, 'Listen, we might need to pay closer attention and get involved in this particular case,'" Pinto said. 

"And the other thing is that we don't see and haven't seen Black women get the kind of justice that Black men have gotten, even though we know Black men don't get much justice, either."

Their first event in Louisville was on Memorial Day, the same day a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd.

Pinto said the group should immediately drive to Minneapolis. It did, spending several days there protesting and holding a news conference where Mallory’s speech on systemic racism in American and looting and fires in the city went viral.

Looking ahead:Protest planned during Derby seeks to amplify Taylor message

Group leaders said they began to sense an energy and response around the country that could lead to change. They saw an opportunity to elevate the Taylor case, since officers in the Floyd case were charged.

"We wanted to utilize (that energy) and make sure that we turn some of this, you know, vision that's on Tamika and on our organization right now to be able and amplify Breonna Taylor," Linen said.

That’s when they decided to make Taylor’s case their focus. And they’ve since said the organization is temporarily relocating to Louisville.

They organized a large rally at the state Capitol in Frankfort that included Tamika Palmer, Taylor's mother, and also hip-hop star Common, actress Jada Pinkett Smith and rapper Rapsody.

They were part of the protest outside Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron's Louisville home that resulted in 87 arrests, including all four of its co-founders and Kenny Stills, a wide receiver for the Houston Texans.

Until Freedom also organized last month’s "BreonnaCon," a four-day "community convention" in her honor, featuring workshops, a school supplies giveaway and a faith revival. The event culminated in a “massive demonstration" throughout Louisville that led to the arrests of more than 70 protesters.

Those events drew some national attention, but the group has also played a role in smaller projects, including the distribution of 2,000 boxes of food in Taylor's honor.

That approach has been noticed and appreciated, local organizers said.

See also:Derby may bring big protests. Here's how the city is preparing

"It's been a phenomenal experience, honestly,” said Timothy Findley, a senior pastor at the Kingdom Fellowship Christian Life Center who’s worked with the group. "When you have a national organizing group like Until Freedom, who has the level of experience, strategy, focus, professionalism that they have, it's an amazing experience because you get the chance to sort of glean from that level of experience.

"And they're very open to teaching and instructing and training based out of that experience. And what I appreciate is that they're very much about propping up local organizations on the ground."

That's not something new.

In one of the group's first national campaigns, it helped organize a "Day of Outrage" that included rallies in at least 27 cities over the death of Atatiana Jefferson, a 28-year-old Black woman killed by police in Fort Worth, Texas. 

There were rallies on Oct. 23, 2019, in such cities as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Miami and Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Brittany Bonner, a Knoxville activist, was among the three women to organize the event there.

"They had a great foundation and framework and central messaging," she said of Until Freedom. "And they were very attentive to … local issues and how that ties in also."

And she's not surprised to hear that the group keeps looking to amplify and emphasize local issues. 

"They're a bad-ass group," Bonner said. "The way that they've grown speaks to their realness in communities. I'm not one to, particularly publicly, speak to a journalist about another organization. It's just that I feel so passionately about Until Freedom."

Related:Louisville's protests hit 100-day milestone on Kentucky Derby Eve

Their approach to working with local activists and organizations happened during the planning for protests surrounding the Kentucky Derby, Pinto said. Historically, social justice movements have used boycotts as a successful tactic, he added.

And there’s no bigger economic or cultural event in Louisville or Kentucky than the Derby.

"So It was a perfect opportunity to say, 'Hold on, wait,'" Pinto said.

"You know, if the levers of power won't pay attention to us simply asking for justice, demanding justice, protesting for justice, getting arrested for justice, maybe we'll try to, you know, end Derby or cancel Derby this year, and the years to follow."

And the efforts around Saturday's Derby were already underway without Pinto and the others, he said.

"So, for us, we really were taking a back seat and saying, 'How can we lend our support, some of our organizing expertise?' And just stand in solidarity with what's already taking place.

"So, Derby has certainly been kind of one of the efforts where we were really standing and watching and finding the places where we can insert ourselves."

Matt Mencarini: 502-582-4221; mmencarini@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @MattMencarini. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today.